Robbins Library Notes

Image at left taken from here.

Good morning, readers!

Last year, I wrote a post about pop culture and philosophy, talking about an editorial that used Batman v. the Joker to show how popular culture can be used to explore and discuss (charged) philosophical topics.

In the same spirit, I will review, today, three books which I’ve recently read.  The books, from the same Philosophy and Pop Culture series as Batman and Philosophy, are:

• Food and Philosophy: Eat, Think, and Be Merry, Fritz Allhoff (Editor), Dave Monroe (Editor)
• Beer and Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking, Steven D. Hales (Editor), Michael C. Jackson (Foreword)
• Wine and Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking, Fritz Allhoff (Editor), Paul Draper (Foreword)

Now, before you hold your nose and pass on today’s reading, declaring them unfit for general philosophical consumption, let me rise to their defense and say that the books in this trilogy are well worth your time to read and ponder.

For one thing, there are some fascinating discussions of philosophy of language, aesthetics, ethics, and epistemology in this book.  For instance:

• Why do we limit artistic and aesthetic pleasure to sight and sound alone, but not to taste, touch, or smell?
• Just what is it that we are describing when we describe a bottle of wine?  Or in a glass of beer?  Are we using metaphor alone?  Or are we describing objective, measurable features of the wine or beer?
• How do we account for things like taste?  Is taste purely subjective?  Or is there an objective component to it?
• What sort of legal and Constitutional issues are involved in the prohibition of shipping alcohol across state lines? In limitations on homebrewing?  How do laws in regards to these differ in Canada as opposed to in the United States?
• In regards to food: what do our cultural dietary consumption patterns reveal about us as a people? As individuals?
• What are the arguments for and against hunting?
• What does it mean to say that certain food experiences are both delicious and disgusting at the same time?

These are but some of the many questions discussed in the trilogy, covering a wide range of topics of interest to philosophers.

Another reason that I liked this trilogy is that many of the essays are simply hilarious even as they explicate some serious philosophical points.

For example, Steven Hales’ essay, “Mill v. Miller, or Higher and Lower Pleasures,” in Beer and Philosophy is a witty examination of what exactly goes into performing a hedonistic calculus according to John Stuart Mill, through the example of determining which beer (a greater amount of lower-quality, less pleasurable beer v. a lesser amount of higher-quality, more pleasurable beer) should be purchased with a limited sum of money.

Likewise, Glenn Kuehn’s “Food Fetishes and Sin-Aesthetics: Professor Dewey, Please Save Me From Myself,” in Food and Philosophy, examines why we have such guilt over food in American culture, with references to Kant, Dewey, and Indiana Jones.

Finally, as pedagogical tools, the essays in these books may help to illuminate questions of perception, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics for students who may need a concrete example or two, to see how a theory might be applied in practice.

In short, I definitely recommend these books.  You will, I think, find them not only insightful, but amusing and helpful as well.